1924-1929 Summary
I hope I don't make too many of you readers upset, but I just lost a long post about the 1924 season and, honestly, don't want to write it all over again.
Moreover, I've already played through 1929; in fact, I haven't actually played this dynasty for over a week while I caught up on the writing. I'm in the mood to play more now, and I'm thinking about a few changes.
So, here's a quick history of the rest of the "Roaring Twenties."
The remainder of the decade witnessed the rise of the league's first true "superteam," the
Baltimore Orioles. The Orioles won the World Series in 1926, 1928, and 1929, giving them a total of four Series championships. Two Pacific Coast Division teams-- the San Francisco Seals (1921, 1924) and the Oakland Oaks (1922, 1927)--have won two Series apiece.
CF
Rick Mar, SS
Chris Gunn, and RF-LF
Dave McBride, all original Orioles, have given the club a core of stars on which it can depend year in and year out. Mar's greatest season came in 1928, when he hit .383/.456/.607 with 11 homers and 136 runs scored, and won the Outstanding Hitter Award. Mar and Gunn are 34 years old, and McBride is 33, so Orioles fans should be able to cheer their exploits for several more years.
Mike Crawford has given the Baltimore pitching staff the same kind of stability. Four times a 20-game winner, Crawford threw a no-hitter in 1924 and is third all-time in wins.
No National Division team has reached the postseason as many times as the
Philadelphia Phillies, but in five tries, the Phils have yet to reach the World Series, much less win it. In ten years with the Phillies, 3B
Howard Mooney has never posted an OBP less than .420; in 1929, at age 40, Mooney hit .359, walked 112 times, and got on base 46% of the time.
Stephen Jones (153 wins) and
Bernardo Piniella (152 wins) have been the mainstays of the Philadelphia pitching staff since 1920.
The
Oakland Oaks have appeared in the playoffs four times, second only to Baltimore's six appearances. Oakland's biggest star is C
Tim Stephens, a lifetime .350 hitter who has completely recovered from a scary 1926 knee injury.
LF
Heinie Manush has also established himself as one of the game's biggest stars in eight seasons as an Oak. He hit .363 in 1928 and .378 in 1929, and has hit for the cycle twice.
Diminutive lefty
Nestor "Hobo" Ornelas, like Stephens an original Oak, won 153 games before suffering a career-ending labrum injury early in 1929; until then, he was still going strong at age 40.
Once among the league's weakest teams, the
Pittsburgh Pirates have made the playoffs four times in the past five years. The Bucs have ridden the booming bats of CF
Maxime Beaumont, 3B
Mike Chappell, and 1B
Lou Gehrig to prominence.
Quebec native Beaumont, 34, is a classic leadoff man with a sharp eye and great speed., Chappell, 35, has posted batting averages of .388, .380, .377, and .367, draws lots of walks, and hits lots of doubles and triples. It is Gehrig, however, who is emerging as the Pirates' greatest player and one of the league's brightest stars.
Just entering his prime at age 26, Gehrig is one of four players who have hit as many as 40 home runs in a single season, belting 41 in 1928 and again in 1929. He was the league's Outstanding Batter in 1927 (.338-32-116), but he was even better in 1929 (.356-41-156, 150 R). Is this only the beginning of greater years to come for the Iron Horse?
Gehrig might one day be the league's all-time home run king, but he'll have strong competition from sluggers like
Joe Hauser and
Mule Suttles. "Unser Choe" began his career with the Chicago Cubs, but was traded to the Hollywood Stars early in 1925. Hauser has won the home run title only twice, but he's finished first or second in that category every year since 1923. In 1928, his best season, Joe hit 46 homers with 152 RBI.
Hauser is now the single-season home run leader, taking that title from Washington's Suttles, who went deep 45 times in 1926 and again in 1929. Suttles, a five-time home run king, has driven in at least 100 runs in five consecutive years.
Brooklyn 1B
Mike Dickey doesn't hit with much power, but he's produced at least 209 hits in each of his ten seasons and has a .364 lifetime average. Among the young stars who are rapping base hits at remarkable rates are men such as Detroit's
Paul Waner and Portland's
Chuck Klein.
The Tigers drafted Waner in the first round in 1925, and he hit .404 the rest of the way as the Tigers won the World Series. After five seasons, Waner's career average stands at .361.
Klein's is even better; he's hit .368 in his three-year career with the Beavers. In 1927, Klein exploded onto the scene like no young hitter ever had. He won the Rookie of the Year Award, hitting .413-22-77 in 80 games.
The
Cincinnati Reds have been consistent winners for most of the last ten years, and the fine work of RHP
Hector "Groundhog" Orozoco has been a big reason why. Orozoco has won at least 20 games six times (1920-1923, 1927, 1928) and was crowned the league's Outstanding Pitcher in '22 and '28. No hurler can match Orozoco's 192 career wins and, at age 37, the Groundhog still retains many of his skills.
The league's most exciting young pitcher is undoubtedly Boston's
Satchel Paige. The #1 overall pick in 1923 when he was allegedly only 16, Paige not surprisingly took some time to mature. Satchel learned his craft with the Birmingham Barons before making his major league debut in 1926. Now he's emerged as the greatest strikeout artist the league has ever seen.
In 1927, his first full season, Paige nearly broke the single season strikeout record, whiffing 160 batters. In '28, Satch racked up 182 Ks and broke the record, which had been held by Milwaukee's Marvin Parkinson since 1921. And, in 1929, he was even more devastating, racking up 218 strikeouts. Paige is only 23, and still has a lot to learn about pitching; his control is erratic, and he gives up a lot of home runs. Still, he's won 21 and 20 games in the past two seasons, and he is poised to become one of the game's biggest and most entertaining stars.
Next, I'll post a series of charts and tables with information about career leaders, award winners, etc.